


Revolutionary kisses

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 50 prompts in 50 days, F/M, Kisses Meme, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 17:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4230231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Friendship, attraction, the start of something new, endings sour and sweet: these are the kisses from the Revolution.</p><p>(Collected kisses meme ficlets, mostly Charloe - check chapter titles for ships.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A kiss on the forehead - Charloe

**Author's Note:**

> Collected Revolution ficlets from the kisses meme I've been working my way through, several of which served double duty as fills for the 50 prompts in 50 days table over at the nbc_Revolution LJ comm. WARNING: These vary in rating from G to mildly explicit: I have chosen M for a catchall rating. WARNING THE SECOND: Check chapter titles for your ship because this will span a wide variety of Revolution ships, including Marlie and Charlie/Miles/Bass, since that's the way I ship.

**Not the kiss she wants**

The war is over, and Charlie’s not sure what to do with that. She’s used to moving, barking orders, the frenetic hubbub of an army on the march, the only silence she’s allowed to get used to the tense hush before a surprise attack.  So when it’s done, after the parades, after the handshakes and the medals and the neat little livings being handed out to everyone Texas wanted to keep on side, all that’s left is to sit on a hill and stare. Maybe she’s watching the road below, or maybe she’s not. She doesn’t know anymore. All she knows is the house is too small for her and Miles and her Mom and Grandpa, and too empty all at once.

What she doesn’t even let herself think is that for the past 18 months she spent every waking minute and most of her sleeping ones in the company of a man who suddenly, unbelievably, isn’t there. A week after the fighting finished, she had struggled her way out of sleep to find him standing by her cot, his General’s uniform traded for the familiar ratty jeans and leather jacket.   He’d been there for a while, she suspects, watching her sleep, and the look on his face had brought tears to her eyes.

“I’ve got to see if I can find Connor,” he said softly, so much finality in his voice that she knew he wouldn’t ask her to come with. She pushed herself to her feet in protest, and he lifted a wondering hand to help her push her bedhead back out her face, fingers lingering to card through the tawny mass as they talked. “They need you here, Charlie. Miles and your mom. I know you think they don’t, but they do. Miles especially.”

“But – “

“No buts, not this time. I will be back,” he’d said, and pressed a slow, reverent kiss to her forehead, apology and farewell tangled together into one.

He’d promised, and maybe it’s just coincidental that she likes to watch the road. She’s not waiting, not putting her life on hold. Just enjoying the silence, she tells herself as she flops backward into the grass.

Such a fucking Matheson, he’d tell her, so far up that river in Egypt. Now if she was honest … she’d admit that she missed him. Thought about him. Liked him, even, he would laugh, eyes crinkling. And then he would throw an arm over her shoulder and try to ignore the electricity that crackles between them. Big, bad General Monroe and his own excursion into the turbid waters of denial.

Because he knows it’s not a kiss on the forehead she wants from him. She’s made it clear enough, pushed her body up against his and felt the heat between them approach boiling point. But every time, he’d backed away, casting her back into that box he’d built for Ben’s daughter, Miles’ niece. And she’d reminded herself of Dad, and Danny, and Nora, and the way lust had flared in his eyes as his torturer held a gun to her head, and told herself it didn’t hurt.

Not this time, she vows. She’ll see him in the distance, and her eyes will follow his horse as it wends its way up the track from town, and she’ll be on her feet by the time he crests the hill, and maybe she’ll take that kiss he tortures her with, his lips warm on her forehead as she welcomes home a friend.

But then she’ll pull him down into the grass with her, rolling him under her if she has to, pinning his arms overhead and making it damn clear he’s not just a friend. Lips and teeth and tongue. Wandering hands and buttons flying. A slow, leisurely, welcome home fuck, right there on the top of the hill, Charlie smirks.

Her heart races at the thought, and maybe that’s why she doesn’t hear them, at first. Thump thump, thump thump, just like her overheated pulse.

Hoofbeats.


	2. A drunk, sloppy kiss (Miloe)

**Swashbuckling**

“Who stole the rum?” Bass asks, nostrils flaring as he attempts to stand.

“There was no rum. There is no rum,” Miles rolls his eyes, yanking on his brother’s shirt to pull him back down onto the bar stool.

“But Miles! We’re _pirates_ ,” he protests mournfully, laying his head back on the bar. “There are swords! So there should be rum.”

“O-kay,” Miles blinks, unable to argue with Bass’ logic. “We’ll have to find a bar with rum then. This one doesn’t have any.”

They throw a handful of diamonds at the barkeep, then weave their way out onto the street. The alley that appears on their left is perfect in case Bass throws up, Miles decides, steering his wobbly comrade into a pool of darkness.

The kiss is sloppy, mouths wide open as they suck on each other’s tongues, teeth clashing as they get lost in rutting against each other, blinding pleasure just out of their reach. They are both breathing hard when they finally lift their heads, Bass blinking owlishly up at Miles.

“Le’s go home. Wanna swash your buckle and rum’s too sweet anyway,” he slurs.

Miles hasn’t got a clue what ‘swash your buckle’ actually means, but he smirks as he guides Bass back up the alley because even after all these years the man is still the funniest drunk he knows. Besides, whatever Bass has in mind, drunk or sober? Usually his kind of fun.


	3. A seductive kiss (CM2)

**Now kiss| Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson/Miles Matheson | six months | M |**

She lies between them, most nights. It’s safer when they’re camped under a rocky overhang, in an abandoned shack, or under a wagon. Bass to her left, Miles to her right, bedrolls closer than they need to be, but warmer for it.

They’ve been fighting for six months when the unthinkable finally happens. A house, with all four walls and intact furniture and wonder of wonders, actual beds. They’ve spent the day negotiating Blanchard’s treaty with the remnants of the Plains Nations tribes, and after the pipe has been smoked and more than a few good bottles of whiskey slaughtered, they are led up the hill to the guest house. Hot water is already waiting in the hipbath in front of the fire, and they’ll have their choice of beds, their proud young guide brags.

They wait until he leaves to decide the Plains tribes aren’t quite that trustworthy yet, and Charlie assumes they’ll be sleeping together in front of the fire.

“Fuck that,” Bass snorts. “We’ll all fit in that big bed.”

He’s right, too. They do. And after her bath, Charlie can’t bear to put her dirty jeans back on, so she slips between the sheets with just her clean tank and fresh panties on.

It’s the same, she tells herself. No different to being in her bedroll with Bass breathing into her ear from behind and Miles warm against her front.

Except, oh god, there’s nothing between them. Bare legs brushing against her own, hot skin under her fingertips when she lifts her arm overhead to encounter a wall of sinewy strength behind her head. The unmistakeable thrust of a half-hard cock against her ass when her tossing and turning rolls her into Bass.

Charlie lies rigid as she waits for the wanting to subside enough to let her sleep. But she’s been battling her own feelings so long, it’s a war her body is willing her to lose. Instead of moving away, she undulates a little, stroking him to fullness so fast she realises he couldn’t have been sleeping either.

His arms slide under her shoulders to pull her back against his chest, and the tickle of his beard against her hair practically demands she twists around to meet his mouth. It’s addictive, she finds, one long kiss, two, the third more a slow, oral fuck that leaves her pushing her leg high over his hip in a bid to feel him where she’s suddenly aware of needing him most.

It’s the weight of his stare that she feels first.

Miles is facing them, watching, and while she can’t see a goddamn thing, Charlie instinctively knows what’s going on under the sheet. She untangles herself from Bass and reaches down to be sure, smiling when she finds his hand wrapped around his cock, jerking slowly.   She’s been in love with him for so long now that pushing herself past the point of no return comes as a relief.

“Do you want to watch him fuck me, Uncle Miles?”

Charlie kneels up to better watch him answer. The conflict raging in his eyes tugs at her guilt, but not enough to make her retract the question. If he needs help to make the decision, so be it, she thinks hungrily, yanking her tanktop up over her head in one easy movement. “Should Bass take off my panties or do you want to do it?”

Miles make an agonised sound in the back of his throat as his black gazes rivets to her small, upthrust breasts.   Charlie can hear Bass behind her, strangely quiet, so she reaches out blindly to grab his hand and place over her breast. It’s enough to prompt him into a series of heartfelt curses as he kneels up behind her, fingers plucking at her nipple as they stare down at Miles together.

“Fuck.” His long exhalation is loud in the quiet room, but doesn’t quite prepare them for the words that come next. “Is she wet?”

Bass groans into her neck at the tacit permission and plunges his other hand down the back of her panties. “Drenched, brother. So ready for us.”

“Is that what you want, Charlie? Me to watch while Bass fucks you? Or – more than that?”

She can barely breathe, she’s so filled with joy.

“More. Everything,” Charlie hiccups as Bass’ clever fingers find a thousand tiny points of pleasure in her slippery folds. “But not just me,” she gasps.

She drags Bass’ free hand away from her chest to place it on Miles’ iron-hard cock.

“Now kiss,” she demands, and is lost to pure sensation when Miles crushes her between them in his eagerness to comply.


	4. I almost lost you kiss (Charloe)

**Just this| Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson | philosophy| M |**

As close calls go, that had been too fucking close, Monroe thunders, kicking at the ground while he uses his sword to punctuate his temper tantrum. She’d disobeyed a direct order, charged in unprepared, with no one to watch her six. Only pure, dumb luck had got her out alive, he yelled, vein throbbing in his forehead as his anger reached fever pitch.

Charlie winces, knowing she’d taken risks she shouldn’t have. Knowing Miles is so angry he’d stomped away into the brush, muttering something about she and Bass spending too much time together, and the stupid rubbing off. So as well as being angry at how worried for her he was, Bass is feeling guilty. Extra guilty, on top of everything else, Charlie clarifies mulishly.

She can’t help but wonder if this little stunt was her confused subconscious trying to force the issue. Because nearly dying has made her realise something. Something she’s pretty sure he’s known for a while now, if all the eyefucking and casual touches and over-protective bullshit is anything to go by. They could be good together – they could be fucking _magnificent_ – and all the obstacles between them are only so much noise.

And near-death experiences are great for helping you discover your philosophy of life. The Matheson brand of denial hasn’t worked so far, so she’s going to try something new. Honesty.

“Monroe,” she says quietly, and approaches him slowly, head up, too proud to grovel. “I’m sorry I scared you. I was afraid. I couldn’t lose you again.”

“Miles, you mean.”

“No, you. Miles too, but – I knew you’d look out for him.   Sometimes I worry I’m the only one looking out for you.”

His jaw drops as he takes in her full meaning, but his frown at the revelation that she doesn’t fully trust Miles is quickly superseded by something warm and hopeful.

“Are you saying you feel responsible for me, Charlotte?”

“Nope.”

“What, then?”

Charlie takes a deep breath, wanting to pin her heart on her sleeve, but not quite able to find the words. There are other ways of telling the truth, she knows. Ways that she has been craving since the first time he came back for her. She takes a step towards him, then another, reaching for his sword to slide it gently back into the scabbard at his hip.

He lets her manhandle him like he would no one else, and it gives her the confidence to nestle one knee between his, and bring their bodies together. “Just this,” she whispers, staring up into his face before she pushes herself up on tiptoes to brush her lips over his _._

He tries to query it, Monroe-stubborn as always, but she chases away his questions by slanting her mouth over his and forcing his wide. They duel, tiger and tigress, nipping at each other and vying for control of the kiss until they find their peace in a slow, delicious union of purpose, worshipping each other as the ember that has glowered for so long bursts into ferocious, undeniable flames.

“Charlotte,” he gasps eventually, gripping at her arms to put a handspan of space between them. His lips are red and swollen, she notes when her eyes are able to focus. Hers probably look the same, but she can’t regret it, that dizzying series of kisses, her body yelling its secrets loud and long.

“Monroe,” she replies, then blushes a little, obviously hesitating at what comes next. But she’s a Matheson, and even if the Matheson’s aren’t known for being loquacious, or straightforward, or emotionally honest, they are stupidly brave. So she looks up, bites her lip, and jumps.

“Bass,” she confesses, and soon, she hopes, she'll be able to tell him how long she's been thinking of him like that. Lusting after him like that.

Loving him like that.


	5. I almost lost you kiss (Miloe)

**Just you and me| Bass Monroe/Miles Matheson | fugitive | M |**

Five years, Miles spent as a fugitive. Not counting last year when they were pretty much at war, and this year, when they were … whatever they were. Changed by the fucking week. But it’s that five years he forces himself to think about as he watches Bass stare into the fire, cheeks gaunt with sorrow under clouded eyes.

It’s hard to hate a man who looks so broken. He has to conjure up the years he spent living in hovels, running from village to village, alias to alias, until he’d pitched up at the Grand and practically dared Bass to come and get him. (No matter how many times they picked over the plotholes in that damn book, Bass would insist Stu Redman was his favourite character. “ He’s as stubborn as you, dickface.”)

Has to think of horror and guilt as the Republic spiralled into insanity, and the look on Nora’s face as she apologised, over and over, for breaking under torture. Rachel. He needs to think of Rachel, the charred body he’d been shown, the right size and shape with several strands of long blonde hair still clinging to the destroyed scalp. Ben, dead. Danny, dead. Jeremy, even. All at this man’s feet.

It doesn’t help.

He reaches into his pack for his real emergency stash, the tiny bottle that actually tastes like whiskey rather than rubbing alcohol. Passes it over with a grunt, not wanting to express any sympathy.

As if he ever needed to say anything for Bass to understand exactly what was going through his head.

Grief-worn eyes barely acknowledge the gesture, the swig almost mechanical. One eyebrow twitches up a fraction, and maybe his mouth twists in appreciation. But when he speaks it’s exactly raw and bitter as he deserves.

“Been holding out on me, brother?” Bass says dully, and maybe he’s talking about the whiskey, but probably not. Hiding Connor all those years, plotting the coup, refusing to admit they were still brothers, the dirty little charade he’d pulled with Rachel … he’s spent the better part of a decade lying through his ass to the one person who has never lied to him.

And now he has to watch Bass grieve the loss of his son, traitorous little bastard that he’d turned out to be. “They shot at me,” was all Bass had revealed after delivering the Patriot president. “Should be used to it, I guess.”

But even if Miles hadn’t spent decades reading this man’s every expression, his stricken face would tell the tale. No matter that he hadn’t known the kid long, no matter that he hadn’t been worth loving, Bass loved the kid anyway.

And still he’d chosen Miles. It’s enough to bring a man to his knees, that type of loyalty.   Miles had forfeited every possible claim he might have had, but some part of him, some greedy fucker that just won’t quit, laps it up, lives for it, needs it like air.

“Don’t go pulling shit like that again,” he mutters, and manhandles his griefstricken brother to his feet. “We almost lost you.”

Bass looks up, blue eyes glinting wetly in a sea of red, snarky comeback dying on his lips as he gets a good look at Miles’ face. “Not yet,” he says, the resignation in his voice a dull blade in Miles’ black, shrunken heart.

He thumps his fist into the familiar solidity of Bass’ shoulder, and steers him into the blackness beyond the campfire, the opposite direction of the cluster of bedrolls already filled with slumbering bodies. Bass doesn’t even fight, simply taking his direction, one foot in front of the other, as Miles leads deeper into the grove of trees.

It makes him angry.

“You don’t get to give up, you slack fuck,” he snarls, wheeling on the man as soon as they are far enough away not to be heard. “You came to me, you started this fucking war, you don’t get to give up.”

Bass pushes him back with a warning shove. “Didn’t say I was. Those Patriot assholes are finished, and if they’re not we’ll finish ‘em. But then I’m outta here. Done.”

The question flies his mouth before Miles gets a chance to realise how colossally stupid it is. “Why?”

“Why? Fucking _why_? Gee, let’s think. First you accuse me of touching up your niece, then you tell me – on the night of my fucking execution! - about Connor. Then I have to watch you play house with the bitch from hell, and turn into a condescending prick who was responsible for exactly half of the shit he’s blaming me for. Then you play me – you fucking play me – in the one way I thought you never could,” Bass chokes out, voice breaking.

“Did you tell her, Miles? Did you a Rachel have a cosy little chat about poor old Bass who’s still panting after you, even after all these years? Were you the one who decide to fucking _use_ that?”

Miles has to close his eyes at the rush of shame. He hadn’t intended the sting to go that way, but should have known Rachel would turn it into that. She’d been jealous of his relationship with Bass from day one, long before they’d ever done anything to be jealous about.

And now he’s thinking about those first days after the Blackout, Bass at his back during the day and wrapped around him at night. The first, tentative forays into slaking the need they’d long denied ever existed. The way it had exploded around them, weeks of frantic, unstoppable need, then levelled into something so natural, so them, that they’d thought it would never end.

His breath stops.

Maybe it never had. Shelly, Nora, Rachel … all the futures they could have had. Yet they end up here, losing themselves in the darkness on the edge of another camp, seconds from brawling. Always did like to blur the line between fight and fuck, Miles thinks wryly, then unclenches his fists to grab at Bass’ leather jacket.

Bass curses up a storm as Miles shoves him backwards, slamming him into a tree. “Just, stop,” Miles begs as he bends his head to steal sweet puffs of breath from the other man’s lungs. “Shut the fuck up and listen.”

Not another word is spoken, but the kiss is long, and wet, and desperate, _don’t leave me_ and _I almost lost you_ and _don’t give up on me_ licked into his mouth over and over again. Other messages, too, apologies and penance and pleas for forgiveness, but above all, one enduring truth.

_Just you and me, brother._

_Just you and me._


	6. A giggly kiss (Charloe)

**Whip It | Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson | whipped cream | Mild E |**

The cake had a definite lean, Charlie noted with a panicked squeak. She had tried to even it up with extra frosting, but that haddn’t helped the increasingly precipitous angle. She was going to have to call him. She had vowed not to, couldn’t even figure out what a Marine would know about birthday cakes, but Nora had insisted on putting the guy’s number in her phone just in case, and yeah … this probably qualified as the sort of case she’d been worried about.

It’s not that Charlie can’t cook. She can – some. A little. As much as a recent Duke grad with a double degree in bioengineering and genetics can be expected to cook. Hell, give her a mass spec and microscope, and she could probably whip up something that looked like a cake. It was just that this baking stuff was a little out of her field of expertise.

So she was going to respect Nora’s wishes and call Uncle Miles’ friend, Perch. Salmon? Ah, that was it. Bass.

“Monroe.”

 “Ah – this is Charlie. Matheson. Charlie Matheson, Miles’ niece? His girlfriend Nora said you might be able to help with his birthday cake if I needed you to?” Damn man hadn’t made a sound all the time she was babbling, and NOW he was laughing?

 “Um. Yeah, sure. Nora said you were a brainbox just like Rachel but might not be able to manage a cake. What’s the problem?”

“It’s kind of on a lean.” Charlie’s eyes widened as something in the cake slid away, taking half the frosting with it. “Oh fuck.”

 “I’ll be there in five.”

*

Whipped cream was the secret, Monroe said, and Charlie had nodded silently, still winded after opening the door.  He was gorgeous. Not just a bit hot, or cute for an old guy, but 150% prime male, moviestar gorgeous. She’s so fucked.

He’d taken command of the kitchen like the drill sergeant – did Marines have drill sergeants? – nosing in the fridge for something, reaching into the cupboard for something else, and lining up a row of bowls on the benchtop.

 “Here. Whip,” he said, pushing one bowl her way to spur her into action, as if the order might not have been enough. Charlie snatches it from him and noses the mixer into the runny cream, setting the speed on high. It flies everywhere.

“FUCK.”

“For a pretty girl, you sure have a filthy mouth,” he smirked, and Charlie couldn’t decide whether she had been complimented or insulted. Not that it mattered. The words had already escaped her mouth.

 “Not even the filthiest thing about me,” Charlie purred, and … fuck. She was officially flirting with her uncle’s best friend.

And if she knows even one damn thing about men, her uncle’s best friend is batting it right back. His eyes, previously a bright, fiery blue were suddenly darker as he watched her lips move, and his tongue kept slicking at that ridiculously kissable lower lip. The need to sink her teeth into it became overwhelming, Charlie letting out a little whimper as she took a completely involuntary step forward.

 “That’d be the cream everywhere, right?”

 He can’t be serious. He can’t. And she would refuse to rise to such obvious bait, Charlie lectured herself.

 “Nah. The cream is sweet. Gooey,” she said, licking the droplets off her hand. “I’m more – tangy.”

 He paled under his ridiculous tan, and the room shuddered with the growl that ripped from his throat. “Not another word, kid. I can’t –"

 He really shouldn’t have called her kid.   She reached into the bowl before he could finish the sentence, coated her hands with the partially-thickened cream, and smeared them all over his face.

 “Who’s the dirty one now?” she’d taunted before pushing him back against the counter, licking the sweetness from his lips.

He had her up on the kitchen bench when Miles and Nora walked in three hours later. There was no escaping what they’d been doing – her t-shirt was mashed into a sorry mass of cake on the floor, and her panties dangled from one foot as Bass ran his tongue over her sticky folds. (Creamy, he’d said, and she’d pouted, pulling him up to lick her juices from his face. Tangy, she had countered with a giggle, and the puffs of merriment against his lips had sent him into gales of laughter too.)

 They try to untangle themselves, but Nora’s squawk at the sight of his obviously exhausted cock ends up in Bass folding Charlie close, much to Miles’ displeasure.

 “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you on spot,” her uncle rasped, and Charlie vaulted from the bench to wrap herself even more tightly around her newfound lover. He’s just that good, she wanted to plead, and honestly, it was all her fault. And Nora’s. And the whipped cream.

But then Bass pulled out the big guns.

“Girl can’t cook to save her life, Miles,” he said with an impressively straight face. “She obviously needs my help.”

*

He lets them leave long enough to buy him a replacement birthday cake, then sits them down for the Come to Jesus speech when they get back. The age gap, yadda yadda. Responsible adults not fucking in kitchens the very first time they meet. Lewd acts with whipped cream.

Bass nodded and hummed at the appropriate moments, then leaned over to whisper in her ear the minute Miles and Nora left the room.

“They’re horny as fuck. A hundred bucks says they won’t be back.”

Charlie smiled and cut herself a second, hugely gooey slab of chocolate cake. She suspects it will taste even better garnished with something salty and sweet.


	7. War's End kiss (Charloe)

**Lay down your weapons** (Charloe for electricbluebutterflies)

*

You weave through the crowd, not really looking for anyone, just soaking it up.  All that joy, their exhilaration bubbling over into shouts and laughter and happy tears.  You smile, try to feel it, but you have a missing limb, a space by your side, a numb heart.  Who knew the end of the war would feel like this?

Blanchard set up a little podium to accept the unconditional surrender of the remaining troops who called themselves Patriots.  Your Generals lurk at the back of the group of dignitaries, too raw and dangerous to make it into the front row.  A little bit redeemed, but forever dirty.  You know how it feels.

Sometimes you think of him as a stain on your heart.  A blot, spreading more each day, destroying your common sense and morality and your ability to even think about anyone else.  He’s not yours.

He’s not yours, but his eyes follow you as you move among the revellers, urging you to feel something, to stay close, to share his frustration with Blanchard’s posturing. And when they file down from the stage, Miles lingering to talk resettlement plans, Monroe follows you into the shaded spot under the awning, then steers you around the corner with a hand at your waist.

The wall is warm at your back as he huffs his relief.  “Five more minutes and we would have had another war on our hands,” he grumbles, and “like it’s worth the paper it’s written on anyway.”

“Don’t get used to it, then?” you snark, and he raises those mobile brows at your scepticism.

“Or, maybe, celebrate while it lasts,” he says lowly, and his body is pressing you into the hot red brick, hands tugging at your hair, lips hovering over your own as he waits for you to slide out, push him away, say no.

You lunge forward instead, licking at his lower lip, begging for a taste of him, even if it’s just once.  Even if real life is looming, and you’ll never get to see your General again.  Because you’re sick of this fight, this war that has been raging in your head since the day you met him.

The war is over, and you want to lay your weapons at his feet.


	8. A drunk, sloppy kiss (Marlie, with a touch of Charloe)

**Half a bottle of bourbon.**   (A Drunk/sloppy kiss, Marlie, for hayjbsg)

*

They peter out, after he leaves. The three of them together had been pure, unstoppable energy, as free of the fetters of everyday life as a bolt of electricity, or a twister howling across the plains. They’d been MilesBassCharlie, past and future wrapped up in one ornery package, but without him, they’re both broken.

The day the pretty new schoolteacher bites her lip as she smiles up at Miles, Charlie kisses him on the forehead and starts to gather her things from around the bedroom they had shared, more out of habit than anything else. They’d made love twice the night before, and she figures they’re both saying goodbye. She’s not going anywhere – they’re too codependent for that – but she’ll sleep in the other bedroom from now on, and slip back into the comfortable role of devoted niece.

Amelia never knows, and never even thinks to ask. She knows who they are, even asks them about some of the more famous battles for her history class, but it’s obvious she’s never heard the more salacious rumors about Good Time Charlie and her two Generals.

(All the stories are true.)

The first year the anniversary of Bass leaving them rolls around, Charlie locks herself in her bedroom and Miles rides into town to meet his lover at the bar. The second year, he’s newly married, and Amelia is just starting to show. He’s off the grog in solidarity, he tells her, silently begging for his understanding.

She kisses him on the cheek as she heads out to find someone to fuck her into forgetfulness.

The third year, Amelia and little Ben are at a church social, the old ladies of Willoughby happy enough to play pass the parcel with the infant, even if he is Matheson demon spawn. Miles plonks the bottle of pre-blackout bourbon in the middle of the kitchen table, and Charlie finds the two roughcut glasses.

“Here’s to dickface,” Miles salutes, “probably pissing everyone off, wherever he may be.”

Charlie raises her glass in salute, then throws back the sweet liquor fast enough to avoid all the memories that come with it. Bourbon had been Bass’ favourite. He would spill it over her belly just to lick up every last drop, invariably ending up with his mouth buried deep in her pussy. He loved kneeling over her to eat her out – Miles would slide into him from behind, and fuck him so slowly that he would be shaking and cursing by the time she came, and he felt able to follow.

Neither of them had wanted to drink bourbon after he left.

Perhaps Miles has forgotten, a mean little voice suggests. Maybe this is his idea of moving on. Every sweet mouthful is torture to her senses, but she presents her glass for a refill anyway.   There’s only one level of sobriety suitable for dealing with this day.

Not even a little bit sober.

Somewhere between their war stories and random pre-Blackout recollections, the truth starts to leak out.

“I can’t drink this stuff without thinking of him,” Charlie says abruptly, and Miles drags his gaze away to rub at his neck.

“Was probably the plan,” he admits after a flat two minutes of refusing to look at her. “You need to go after him.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t. Because that life – it’s over for me now, Charlie. But not for you. Gotta stop hiding,” he slurs. “And without me in the picture …”

“What? I get to be his consolation prize? Not the Matheson he really wants, but will do in a pinch? Fuck you, Miles!”

Charlie slams herself upright, only wobbling when she tries to take a step. She might have to be indignant sitting down, she allows, but it’s too late. Miles is already rounding the table to take her by the shoulders.

“Not what I meant. We should never have … Bass and me. Didn’t work. Loved each other, sure, but too much pain there.   But you and Bass – you had a chance,” he pleads. “Without me, you would have made a go of it. Should’a gone with him.”

The bourbon is hitting them both hard, Miles pulling her into the circle of his arms as she sways on her feet, and peppering her hair with kisses. He rears back then, lifting her chin in one hand to stare into her eyes as he delivers the ultimatum.

“I love you, Charlie, but don’t make us your life. Your life is out there waiting for you,” he says solemnly, lowering his head bit by bit to give her time to evade the approaching kiss.  She pushes herself onto tiptoes to grab it instead. It’s sloppy, and wet, and a bit nasty, the old heat rising faster than she would have thought possible.

“Charlie girl,” he moans, bucking his hips into hers, “gotta stop.”

He’s right, neither of them willing to abuse his wife’s trust any more than they already have, but both having difficulty fighting their way free of the past they can suddenly smell, taste and feel. He releases her arms with a noise of near pain, then takes a step back, then another, breathing an obvious sigh of relief when he manages to put the table between them.

“Seriously? This is all down to you, Miles. I’m not going to chase you down,” she snaps, outraged at even the suggestion she was the aggressor here. She didn’t – she wouldn’t – not unless … Miles was right, she suddenly realises. She would never chase Miles down.

Bass though …

“Go find the fucker, and have a tribe of your own,” Miles orders, taking a long, final swig from the bottle before he turns on his heel and stalks out of the room.

She caps the bottle and takes it back to her room. South, they’d heard. Way south, south of tequila country even. She’ll need maps, and all her diamonds. A steamer passage. Her crossbow, and her favourite throwing knives. Her old backpack, still waiting for her in the bottom of the closet.

And half a bottle of bourbon, for when she finds him.


	9. An awkward kiss (Jason/Charlie)

4\. Awkward kiss - Jason/Charlie for connormonroeismyking;

**The stolen moment**

  
*  
The entire room shakes with the impact of Jason’s fists, and Charlie has to turn her back.  It would have been the blood, once, that made her look away.  The sight of the Patriot’s face disintegrating under the blows.  Now she looks away lest Jason see the arousal flaring in her eyes.

  
She’s kissed this man, before.  When she was a girl and he was a boy, before the bombs, before the Patriots … before they became two different people, more enemies than not.  Allies now, she tells herself, but no one she trusts.

  
Some things don’t require trust, her libido reminds her.  Some things only need a dark corner, and the massive bulk of his shoulders underneath her fingers, her knees clamped over his hips.  Five minutes, and five minutes, and if they’re really lucky, another five, for recuperation.

  
(The girl had wanted days and weeks, and a comfy bed, with clean, fresh linens.   She would have probably kissed him slowly, shyly, mouth closed until his tongue teases her open, legs crossed until he nudges them apart.)

  
The woman sends Connor downstairs to keep watch for anyone coming in or out, then traps her untrustworthy ally against the wall, ripping at his clothes with hungry, impatient hands.

  
“Charlie?” he pants, and she fights the kiss, because his mouth on hers, so wondering, so soft – that’s her childhood, and weakness, and more memories than she knows what to do with.  So she bites down, leaves his lip bloody, and thrusts her hand into the front of his jeans, jerking him mercilessly.

  
But when they’re done, when he’s worked her to climax with his fingers and she’s finished him off with her mouth and he pulls her up to whisper secrets into her hair, she lets him nuzzle her ear, then nose his way across to her mouth. She opens tentatively, almost shyly, then gasps at the sweetness of him, of the strange and heady devotion in his kiss.  Suddenly, miraculously, she’s a girl again, lost in this boy who has saved her life, and betrayed her, and saved it once more.

She doesn’t want it to end, presses closer and moans in protest when they pull apart at the sound of Miles and Bass bitching at each other as they clatter up the stairs.  She is wiping her mouth dazedly when they slam their way in, trying not to think about what this means, or whether she can just pretend it didn’t happen, or how soon she can kiss him again.

Her lips are still tingling nearly an hour later when she sees a glint in the window across from the stage, and climbs the steps up to the old library.


	10. War's End kiss, Charlie and Connor

**Sit Back**

They find him in Bradbury. Eyes vacant, mouth ever so slightly agape, brain fried. Miles and Bass take one look at him and relegate him to enemy. Connor, they insist, is gone.

Charlie refuses to give up that easily. She doesn’t leave him alone with their weapons, sure. Keeps her guard up at all times. But she talks to him, tells him about the changes in Willoughby since they kicked the Patriots out, shares the town gossip. It’s mostly about her Mom and Miles, she confesses.

“Mom said they were on a break,” she shrugs when he looks past her to the kitchen, where Miles and Bass are playing poker under the unseemly glare of a lightbulb. “Then she accused him of running off with his lover.”

That wins her something that might even be his old, familiar smirk. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he murmurs, and Charlie has no idea what that means, but whatever. He’s smiling.

The next day, he smiles some more. The day after that, it’s a full-fledged grin. Kind of freaky in the middle of a battle against nanozombies, but so very Monroe.

“Welcome back,” Bass says quietly, as they wash up after. Charlie’s heart nearly breaks at the yearning in his eyes, how badly he wants to believe Connor is theirs again, but can’t quite let himself. She knows how he feels. She doesn’t dare hope, either.

But she doesn’t need hope to feel, just a short day’s slaughter, running water hot straight from the tap, and a room full of sweet-scented steam. She scrubs her skin until the water is no longer red with blood, and watches it trickle down the plughole until she is clean.

This was the end, Miles has said.   The Patriots were routed, the Nano was … not currently active. Suppressed, perhaps. The power should be coming back everywhere, soon.

Charlie doesn’t know how she feels about that, who she will be in that world, but for now, she is clean. She is warm. And thinking of him as she fills the bathtub.

It’ll be seamless for Miles and Bass, just a long, savage glitch in the canvas of their lives.   But the kids that grew up in the Black, half-educated and spooked by technology and altogether too quick with a gun or a knife … will there be a place for them?

She shrugs, knowing she’ll do what Mathesons have always done. Shoulder her way in, even if there isn’t space.   Force them to see her, make room for her. And maybe Connor too. They can be anachronisms together, refugees from that brief time when the world went mad.

Tonight though, she’s going to dance on its grave. Drink to the future, salute the past, and chase away her fears in the most classic, timeless manoeuvre known to humankind.

“Connor,” she yells, and pushes the shower curtain back so that when the door opens, he’ll see her waiting for him, pink and glowing, bedecked with bubbles.

He bursts through the door, brandishing his knife, and nearly skids on the slick tiles. “I thought --”

“What do you think now?”

He recovers well, she’ll give him that. Only the fierce glow in those dark eyes betrays his arousal as he wills his body in casualness.

“I need a bath.”

“I might be persuaded to share mine.”

“Hmm. Interesting. What would persuade you?”

“Come here and find out.”

Connor’s lips are as soft as they used to be, and his tongue is a good deal more adept these days, Charlie discovers. She wonders why, who, for a moment, but then decides it doesn’t matter. Not when his hands are moving south, pushing bubbles aside to find the pink-tipped beauty of her breasts, and exploring the indentation of her navel with a wandering fingertip.

Charlie is liquid by the time he lifts his head, tongue tracing her lips in a teasing parting gesture that leaves her mewling with lust.

“I probably shouldn’t disturb you,” he smirks, but doesn’t lift the hand stroking the skin low on her belly.

“I’m kinda done here. Mostly. I could get out and leave you to it if you wanted me to,” she teases back. “Or I could wash your back.” His clothes are wet, she notices, and reaches up to undo a button on his jeans.

“That’s not my back,” he says hoarsely, then divests himself of his shirt in one quick movement.

Charlie releases another button, then another. “I must be lost.”

Connor’s eyes close as his jeans gape open and her hand pushes inside. “And here’s my Dad telling me what a good tracker you are,” he gasps.

“You really want to be thinking about your Dad right now?”

“Aren’t you?”

Charlie shrugs, not particularly keen to lie. She’s a woman with eyes. Of course she thinks about Monroe.

“Not right now. That’s the great thing about being in an actual house. Rooms – with doors. I don’t have to listen to the noises they make when they’re trying to pretend they’re not fucking.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah. There’s a reason Willoughby likes to gossip about Miles and my Mom … they were never going to last. Not with Bass around.”

“I thought Neville was talking out of his ass.”

“He’s evil, not stupid,” Charlie shrugs, removing her hand from his trunks to push the jeans down. “But we’re definitely not talking about Neville. And you need to be naked.”

Connor kicks off his boots and wriggles out of his jeans before standing over her, cock at full mast, to soak in the view. His eyes are heavy with arousal, but there’s something else in them that makes Charlie’s heart skip a beat.

“Is this what they call hope?” he asks softly, and she can’t return his gaze, can’t make too much of it. But she slides forward in the bath, making room for him behind her, then snuggles back down into his chest. It’s not until he’s sucking on the tender flesh underneath her ear that it rises up from inside her, undeniable.

“Or something like it,” she gasps, and drags his hands onto to her body, exactly where she wants them. Maybe it’s just for now, or until the water runs cold, or for the days and weeks ahead. They can’t know what the future has in store for them.

But she’s spent her whole life fighting for something better, so she figures it’s time to sit back and learn to enjoy it.


End file.
